4-part interview with Mickey Rourke below.<\/p>\n
Riveting.<\/p>\n
One of the things that strikes me is the long-percolating faith of his former colleagues and friends, and how they all seem so so eager to talk about him in a positive way again – because even 5 years ago, it would have been too early. Now is the time. Alan Parker, Eric Roberts – and the guy named Carl Montgomery (he killed me!) – who was the proprietor of the Marlton Hotel, where Mickey Rourke first lived when he moved to New York. Montgomery was a theatre buff, and he sensed Rourke’s hunger – and just had a sense about him – “I truly thought he was going to be the best actor of his generation” – so he started to lend Rourke (who was totally uneducated about acting) biographies – which is how Rourke learned about Brando, Clift, the Actors Studio. So Montgomery, now an old man, is interviewed – and you can sense his loyalty to Rourke – especially in the moment when he talks about watching one of the movies Rourke made during his bad years – “You almost felt embarrassed for him, they were all so bad …” But these people … they remember … and it is like, even with the number of bridges this guy burned – and not just burned – but blew up into a fireball in the middle of the night – there is a place for him. They remember. They remember. Roberts was like, “Yeah, he’s had plastic surgery and that made him look a little weird – but now the surgery has relaxed a little bit – and I think he’s going to blow our minds.”<\/p>\n
I am also struck by Rourke’s gentleness (all of his parts have that gentleness in them – even though he usually plays tough guys – the way he moves a strand of hair off of a girl’s face – a more delicate gesture you cannot imagine – and that gentleness and sensitivity seem very much genuine in him, it’s an essence<\/i> thing, rather than an acting<\/i> thing) and by the fact that he is STILL a mess. I relate to that. Because yes. Messes are made. But what can be done with what remains? The damage was done. Long ago. Can’t be undone. No amount of self-help stuff will get rid of it. But perhaps now … perhaps now … it can be used<\/i>. Like my acting teacher Doug Moston said, “I am a big fan of sublimation. Take your pain and make it sublime.”<\/p>\n
The most stunning moment for me is when the interviewer asks, in regards to Carre Otis, his ex-wife, “Do you think you’ll get over her?”<\/p>\n
Rourke replies, “Probably not.” Just watch how he says it, how he looks after he says it, the way he takes a drag, then the little grin – and it’s got everything in it – he knows he’s dramatizing, but there’s truth in it, too – he’s not self-pitying, just telling it like it is. But it’s also riveting in that way that he has – that movie star’s awareness of the impact he has on an audience … yet it doesn’t feel played<\/i>. It’s not pretty, but then, nothing is pretty with Rourke.<\/p>\n
Do you think you’ll ever get over her?
\nProbably not.<\/p>\n
And that’s the way life is sometimes. That is the hand that is dealt.<\/p>\n
Riveting. I can’t take my eyes off the guy.<\/p>\n
\n